Method for Identifying Microbial Antigens that Stimulate Specific LymphocyteResponses: Application to Salmonella

摘要

Vaccine development and understanding of cellular immune stimulatory mechanismshave been impeded by the paucity of data on microbial antigens that stimulate protective immunity. We describe a general method for identifying and isolating peptide antigens that specifically stimulate sensitized lymphocytes. Use of primary polyclonal lymphocytes provides a rapid and simple method for screening recombinant DNA libraries for clones that stimulate specific immune response and avoid the use of cloned lymphocyte cell lines. This approach should be generally applicable to similar studies in different hosts of many other microbial pathogens.